Page 73 of A Time of Witches

Air rasped from her dry throat, making it stick together. “Water,” she begged.

“Not until you confess,” Hopkins replied in a bored drawl.

She hated groveling, but she could think of nothing but slaking her burning thirst. “Please.”

“Run,” a guard barked from behind her back. She jolted forward, hobbling as quickly as she could.

She did not know how much more time passed then. But she could not help recalling how Edith had been gone three days before she was finally returned.

Had it been a day yet?

Was it night now?

How much longer must she endure this torment?

Her head was light, her body heavy, and her exhaustion so great, she closed her eyes into blackness each time she reached one of the chairs.

A cudgel slapped against her arm in a pop of pain. “Move!”

Her eyes snapped open, and she limped to the other chair.

Hopkins’s smooth voice followed her. “Did you take the Devil as your lover?”

No.

Her steps faltered and her lids drifted closed even as she continued to propel herself forward.

“…the Devil with dark hair and a pointed beard…”

An image swam in her mind of a handsome man with dark hair and a pointed beard.

“Did you attend the Sabbath with the Devil?”

No.

Her head nodded forward in a snatch of sleep despite the ongoing plod of her steps.

“Did you dance around the fire with Edith with ribbons streaming from your hair? Red and gold and black.”

She could see the scene in her mind, a great fire as she and Edith danced with ease around the flames, the red, gold, and black ribbons twirling, tangling.

No.

“Do you have familiars?”

Brixton leaped into her mind, his wide, trusting brown eyes. Oh, what men would do to an animal they presumed guilty. She flitted back to awareness with horror.

No!

On and on the inquiries went.

No and no and no and no.

She replied only with no. No matter how many times she was asked. No matter how often her mind went dark with exhaustion as she continued to run while Hopkins planted pictures in her mind.

“Are you telling me the truth?”

The “no” froze on Sybil’s tongue and her brain whirled around the question, one that had changed shape, one meant to make her falter.